The whole roasted pig's head arrives at the table like a scene from an oil painting, as though the cast-iron dish it rests on has been transported from some long-ago bacchanal populated by Roman centurions glugging from wineskins. With two forks you shatter the crisp skin and excavate the juicy meat from beneath a thick layer of fat. The brave will go for the eyes, the snout, the deep-fried ear, or dip the meat into the ramekin of "brain-aise" — aioli made with pig brains — that accompanies it. The rest will be content with refreshing their palate with the brothy salsa verde dipping sauce, or by nibbling on the chicories and salty whole capers that adorn the platter. In a truly baller move, the pig's snout is anointed with gold leaf.
This is more or less the signature dish at Cockscomb, the latest restaurant from offal-obsessed local celebrity chef Chris Cosentino. "Celebrity" is the closest word we have to describing a person who's appeared on his own Food Network show as well as Top Chef Masters, Iron Chef America, and others, but Cosentino has an uneasy relationship with his success. At last August's chef-studded MAD conference in Copenhagen, he gave a brave, impassioned 25-minute speech about the dangers of submitting to the lure of celebrity. He'd gone on TV to bring diners into his flagship Italian restaurant Incanto, he said, but had ended up looking like a bully and left with a host of health problems. Now, he declared, he was starting over.
Incanto was an important restaurant in San Francisco, for, among other things, Cosentino's willingness to serve all the "other" parts of the animal long before it was cool to do so. Many San Francisco eaters were introduced to various nibbly bits in the whole-pig feasts in Incanto's back room, decorated with an elaborate mural of Dante's Divine Comedy. Incanto closed nearly a year ago, and Cosentino's newest effort, Cockscomb in SOMA, is in many ways an extension and update of that restaurant — the chef's rebirth into the local food scene, this time doing things his way. He's still serving the obscure parts of the animal but through a San Francisco rather than Italian lens, and his new showcase for the food seems more personal and less dated than Incanto did toward the end. Cockscomb is a restaurant updated for the less-easily-shocked customers of 2015.
Dishes like the whole roasted pig's head are an obvious centerpiece, but the menu has San Francisco built into its DNA. Oysters are a main attraction, and dishes like tetrazzini, celery victor, the oyster omelet, and the little gem lettuce salad with Green Goddess dressing all speak to the city's rich culinary history. The celery victor, in particular, is wonderful: a marinated celery dish invented in the early 20th century at the St. Francis Hotel, which at Cockscomb comes as a bright salad combining celery root (braised and shaved into curls), stalks, and leaves that is surprisingly refreshing, making you look at celery in a whole new light. Naturally, it's topped with shards of fried chicken skin, and those little gems are topped with chicharrones. Cosentino is not above gilding the lily.
But mostly when I think back to meals at Cockscomb I think about the meat. There are many moving targets on the menu, items that change nightly, and the servers rattle them off so quickly it's hard to keep track — I wanted a menu of the specials along with the regular menu — but close listening will be rewarded. After the foie gras ban was lifted, Cockscomb started featuring the aptly named Hot Mess as one of its "Butcher's Choice" specials, a salty tangle of seared foie gras, pork trotter, and porky gravy atop a piece of sodden toast. Grapes and grape jelly were involved, but not enough to cut through the onslaught of fat; I wanted pickles and more salty capers (I wanted the same with the pig's head). Instead of a beef burger, there's a literal "ham"burger, inspired by Cosentino's young son, who wondered to his father why the "hamburger" seemed to be missing its namesake ingredient. It's as thick and messy as any burger should be, served with fried potatoes crisp enough to make you wish that Cockscomb served brunch.
The best seats in the house are at the counter, where you can watch the half-dozen busy chefs in the open kitchen taking things in and out of the wood-fired oven or basting the indulgent grilled cheese with several tablespoons of butter. A bird's-eye view of the scene is available from the top balcony, which offers a semicircle of tables looking over the dining room. Despite the poured-concrete walls (and yes, there are Edison bulbs, which we as San Franciscans just need to accept as our lot in life, I guess), the noise level isn't deafening; it's loud enough to feel like a buzzy, big-city restaurant, but you can still hear the person sitting next to you.
From any vantage point you can feast your eyes on all the items that you didn't order but wanted to, like the massive bacon chop adorned with Brussels Sprouts kraut, or the deep red beef-heart tartare, or the plate topped with curls of aged Benton's country ham, or the open-faced sandwich draped with lardo and uni butter on Tartine bread.
You have gathered by now that this is not the restaurant to come to on a diet. To cut through all the fat and salt there are several amaros on the menu, including a good Negroni on tap, though the cocktail list skews toward gin, per Cosentino's preference. It's his restaurant, after all — part of the fresh start he alluded to in his heartfelt speech at the MAD conference all those months ago. In my estimation, he's built a very solid foundation for it.
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